Ralph 4

[pubby]

I wanted to learn how to program NES games so I threw together a little game in two weeks to learn how. The game is called "Ralph 4", and it is a sequel to the very first game I ever created: "Ralph 1", which was made using Gamemaker in the year 2004.

The game is mostly finished, but it is lacking music and sounds. It would be much appreciated if anyone on these forums would be willing to contribute Famitone2 tracks (without DPCM) to be used in the game.

Update: Music and sound have been added by MovieMovies1.

Also, I would be interested in gauging how difficult the game is. It takes me about 10 minutes to beat all the levels, but this isn't a very useful metric considering I'm the creator. What I want to know is how long it takes to beat on a blind play. If any of you are able to beat the game then please post your times.

The game has been tested on FCEUX and Nestopia, though I haven't tested it on a real NES. Hopefully it will work.

Here are two screenshots:





Anyways, thanks for the great forum and wiki, and especially thanks to Tepples and Shiru their great resources.

The ROM should be attached (ralph4.nes is the newer one). The code is on Github: https://github.com/pubby/Ralph-4

[dougeff]

You can have any of these songs, I'm not going to use them for anything...

https://youtu.be/IgsxxGpAEBg

(not famitracker, I wrote my own music engine to play them).

[dougeff]

I got about 2-3 minutes in, and got to a room I couldn't pass. Played it about 20-25 times. Gave up.

[lidnariq]

I played for 19-ish minutes, got to the room with the three small swirly koalas in the upper right. Decided I'd had enough.

[pubby]

You can have any of these songs, I'm not going to use them for anything...

https://youtu.be/IgsxxGpAEBg

(not famitracker, I wrote my own music engine to play them).

Sweet, but I'm not sure if it's worth the effort for me to convert them.

I played for 19-ish minutes, got to the room with the three small swirly koalas in the upper right. Decided I'd had enough.

Yeah, that's what I figured. It's really damn hard. I was thinking about adding an easy mode or something, but I figured that if I wanted to create more content then my time would be better served working on a newer/better game than Ralph.

[lidnariq]

An (obvious?) idea to make an easy mode would be to either have a slow-motion mode, or to halve the speed of the koalas.

[B00daW]

Hey pubby,

I'd suggest taking a look at Battle of the Bits and getting in contact with any of our authors in the community. Many of them are familiar with FamiTracker and most have a higher level of technical understanding. Having them export to FamTone2 and optimizing for it shouldn't be much of an issue as we usually hold compos on who can create small/optimized songs.

Cheers.

[pubby]

I'd suggest taking a look at Battle of the Bits and getting in contact with any of our authors in the community. Many of them are familiar with FamiTracker and most have a higher level of technical understanding. Having them export to FamTone2 and optimizing for it shouldn't be much of an issue as we usually hold compos on who can create small/optimized songs.

Neat site. I take it that contacting individual artists would be the way to go? I saw something about contests there, but I'm guessing that option would be inappropriate/out of my league for a little game like Ralph 4.

[B00daW]

Neat site. I take it that contacting individual artists would be the way to go? I saw something about contests there, but I'm guessing that option would be inappropriate/out of my league for a little game like Ralph 4.

Hey, you could create an account; log onto IRC and then ask someone to create a One Hour Battle for NSF format. If you so desire you could also talk to one of the admins or venerable regulars to post a bulletin scheduling the time of the battle to win the ability to create a soundtrack for you; providing the expectations.

I am a long-standing administrator for the site. Let me know if I can be additional support on our forums or on the IRC channel: (EsperNet #botb)

(The site has somewhat of a learning curve. Feel free to meander and lurk, or jump in and ask questions.)

[AlexE]

I tried it out on my Everdrive N8. Everything appears to work except for sound. There's no music or sound effects at all when used on the Everdrive.

[lidnariq]

The game is mostly finished, but it is lacking music and sounds.

[pubby]

The problem has been fixed!

MovieMovies1 offered to create some music and sounds for the game, and I think he did a really good job! It sounds great now. I'm attaching the "final" version of the game to this post, so give it a play and give it a listen, and maybe you'll have fun for a few minutes.

The (ugly!) source code is on Github: https://github.com/pubby/Ralph-4

An (obvious?) idea to make an easy mode would be to either have a slow-motion mode, or to halve the speed of the koalas.

I have implemented a mode that slows the game down to 5/6 speed, but it requires special European hardware to enable it

[dougeff]

Sounds very good.